Cream Cheese, Cheese Ball

Around the holidays it is always fun to buy a cheese ball. For your New Years Eve party why not make your own!
    This is a simple and delicious recipe given to me by my mother-in-law that she got from her mother.
Cheese balls are a delicious snack for any occasion so I hope you will enjoy this scrumptious recipe!

What you'll need:
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 to 5 ounces Bleu or Roquefort cheese
2 8 ounce packages of cream cheese (leave on counter for a little while to soften)
1/8 tsp garlic salt (or garlic powder and salt)
1 T finely chopped green pepper
1 T chopped pimiento

Step 1 -
    Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread your chopped walnuts in a shallow pan and toast in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden. You can stir the nuts occasionally to get them evenly toasted.

Step 2 -
    Blend your cheeses together until creamy. I like to use a hand mixer but you can also stir by hand. Then mix in your pimiento, green pepper and garlic salt. (I am not a very big fan of garlic salt so I used half garlic powder and half regular table salt.)

Step 3 -
    Place your mixture in the fridge and let it sit for a good 2 hours until it is firm.

Step 4 -
    After your cheese ball mixture is firm shape it into balls. You can make 1 large ball, 2 medium, 3 small or a cheese log instead. Roll your ball or log in your toasted walnuts and chill in the refrigerator till serving time.

    You can also make some holly to garnish the top with green pepper as the leaves and pimientos as the berries.

Serve with your favorite crackers or even use as a spread on croissant sandwiches.
Cheese balls are so delicious and are an easy treat at any party!

Happy New Year!

Easy Fudge

Who says fudge is just for the holidays? Here is a fudge recipe that will taste great no matter if you make it in December or July. This is also an easy fudge recipe, no candy thermometer required, so roll up your sleeves and let's start!

What you'll need:
4 cups sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
11 oz mini marshmallows
4 Hershey's milk chocolate candy bars
1 16oz bag semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp vanilla
Desired topping: nuts or candy canes

Preparation step:
    If you want nuts or crushed candy canes in your fudge chop all of this beforehand. You won't have time during the cooking process to stop and chop nuts so do this first!
    Also prepare either a 9x13 inch casserole dish lined with wax paper on the bottom and sides, or a cookie sheet lined with wax paper so you'll have a place to pour your fudge out when you're done.

Step 1 -
   In a pot, no smaller than 3 quarts, put your sugar, butter and evaporated milk. Stir together and cook to a boil while stirring constantly with a heat resistant spoon or spatula.
   Let it boil for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Put a timer on, you don't want to burn your fudge.

Step 2 -
    After it boils for 10 minutes turn the burner to low and add your vanilla, chocolate bars, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Stir until melted.

Step 4 -
    Take the fudge off the heat and stir in half of your desired topping such as chopped nuts or crushed candy canes.

Step 5 -
    Poor your fudge either into a 9x13 casserole dish or onto a cookie sheet. I like the cookie sheet because the fudge cools faster and isn't as thick so you get more pieces.
     You could also lay out wax paper on your counter top instead of in a cookie sheet. But if you don't have a lot of counter space a cookie sheet or glass dish is better.
    Once your fudge is all poured out you can cover the top with the other half of your toppings!

    If you want your fudge to cool faster you can put it in the fridge, other wise let it sit till it hardens.
    Once it hardens cut it into pieces of your desired size.

I hope you love this simple recipe as much as I do!

Have a Happy New year and may all your cooking be right. ;-)

Christmas cupcakes

Here are some cute designs to stick on your cupcakes or cookies this holiday season.

First you'll want to frost your cupcake or cookie with a nice basic color. I chose white. You can make it easier by piping a swirl and the spreading it out. You want your basic color in a piping bag anyway, so it comes in handy.

Christmas tree:
Pipe a frosting cone on your cupcake. For this you start with your round tip almost touching the cupcake. I used a #10 tip, you want a big tip, nothing below #7.

Then squeeze out frosting and slowly raise your tip away from the cupcake. You want the tip of the tip to stay in the frosting cone your making while piping.

Be sure to gradually make your cone smaller as you move up until you reach your desired height. End it with a point.

Next you'll want to put green frosting in a piping bag with a star tip. You can use a #24 or #27 tip. (You can also use a leaf tip if you like that look better but I think the star tip makes it look more like a pine tree.)

To make the bows of your pine tree just start squeezing with the star tip at the base of your frosting cone and pull out making it as long as you desire. Then as you work your way up the frosting cone make your tree limbs shorter.

Then you can decorate your tree any way you want with round sprinkles, piping dots, or piping garlands.

Wreath:
Use a star tip and you could either pipe a squished shell boarder or make a continuous squiggly line. Then finish it off with a bow.

These look festive are super fun to make and are even more fun to eat!
Have a Merry Christmas!

French Bread

Welcome to another wonderful instalment of baked goods on The Daisy Cake.
I know I haven't done a lot of cake recipes lately but I had to share with you a recipe I love to make: French bread.

I learned how to make this French bread recipe in my baking class and the recipe comes from "Professional Baking" by Gisslen, 5th edition. The only thing I've changed from the original recipe is the amount of bread it makes. This recipe makes a small loaf that will feed 4. The way you make it isn't all that difficult you just need to set aside enough time for the dough to rise and have it be done by the time you want to eat it.

Ingredients for French Bread:
Flour - 9.5 oz (2 cups*)
Water (warm) - 5.7 oz
Yeast - 1 1/2 tsp.
Salt - a little less than 1 tsp.
Malt syrup or brown sugar - 1/4 tsp.**
White Sugar - a little more than 3/4 tsp.
Shortening - a little more than 3/4 tsp.

*Here is the reason for my measurements in ounces. Baking is more of a science or if you want things to be perfect you have to exact. Even when a recipe says 2 cups of flour the way I measure two cups may be different than the way someone else measures 2 cups. When you weigh your ingredients things turn out a lot better.
Water is a lot easier to measure in ounces because liquid measuring cups have the ounces marked on them. But because it's an odd number just remember that .25 = 1/4  .5 = 1/2 .75 = 3/4. So with 5.7 just go a little under 5.75.

**Malt syrup is expensive and isn't used in a whole lot of other things so just use sugar. The malt syrup is only to feed the yeast so sugar will do the job just the same as the syrup.

If you enjoy baking and want to do it right invest in a small kitchen food scale. They are only about $10 and it is worth it to have for any recipe you may be using not just in baking.
For those of you without the use of a kitchen scale You can use the cup measurements I put up but do not pack your flour let it be loose in the cup. You don't even have to level it with a butter knife just level it by shaking the measuring cup back and forth. (Example below)

Step One: Dissolve the brown sugar or malt syrup in the warm water. Then add the yeast to the water and sugar mixture and let it sit until it starts to foam.
Mix the flour and white sugar together. Put the salt and shortening in a separate dish apart from each other.

Step Two: Place the flour sugar mixture in a bowl and make a well to pour in the water yeast mixture. Use your fingers to mix in a little flour at a time to look like the picture below:

Then pour in your salt and shortening and mix it in with your figures to spread it evening through the mixture. Once your salt and shortening is in then mix in the rest of the flour until you get a ball of dough.

Add more flour to your dough until it is no longer sticky. Knead your dough for 8 to 10 minutes till firm.

Step Three: Place the dough into a bowl sprayed with cooking oil so it won't stick and put plastic over it to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until it has doubled in size.

Step Four: When you dough is done rising punch it down lightly to release the air. Then you're going to beat your dough to help in the gluten development in the dough.
Hold your dough in one hand slam it down on the counter then fold it in half and slam it down again. You can stretch the dough in order to fold it again and again after each time you beat the dough on the counter.

Beat it for about 5 minutes. Once you've beat it for a while the dough will become more elastic and you will be able to tell a difference.
Then place the dough back in the bowl and let it sit for 10 minutes to rest.

Step Five: After your dough has rested roll it into a rectangle:

Then fold it into thirds on top of itself:

Fold in the ends and lightly roll it to form a cylinder:

Step Six: Place your dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and cover it in plastic wrap. Let it rise for 1 hour till it doubles in size.
While it rises preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

Step Seven: Get a very very sharp knife and cut slits in the top of your loaf. Hold the knife at a 45 degree angle when cutting and cut the slits parallel to loaf. Do not cut diagonally over the loaf.
The reason you put slits in your loaf is to give it a place to expand when it bakes. This way your loaf will not split on the sides.

Before you place your loaf in the oven get a dish with part ice part water and place it on the bottom rack in your oven. Then place your loaf in the over above the dish of water:

You put the ice water in the oven because you need to steam the French bread for the first 10 minutes. When you steam the French bread it makes the crust crispy and flaky. Take the dish of water out after 10 minutes.

Keep an eye on your loaf and take it out when it is golden brown. I only baked my French bread for maybe 20 minutes.

When your french bread is done baking let it cool but eat it while it is still warm to enjoy a delicious treat!
It takes a while to make French bread but the end result is totally worth it!

Leave a comment about your adventures in making French bread.

No more cake cone

Have you ever baked a cake and it didn't rise evenly? You ended up with a tall cone in the center that you ended up having to cut off, right?
Well never fear here is a way to help your cake rise evenly!

All you need is a flower nail. You cake buy them in any cake department at the store. Then cut a circle of parchment paper the size of your cake pan to line the bottom. Poke the flower nail through the center of the parchment and lay it head up in the bottom of the pan.
Then pour batter in bake and viola! No more cone. Having the nail in the cake helps it rise evenly.
Also don't forget to spray the parchment paper and the bottom of the pan so nothing will stick.

But whatever you do don't spray the sides of your cake pans. The cake batter needs something to grab onto as it rises and if you spray the sides it can effect how he cake rises.
When you bake a cake correctly it should pull away from the sides of the pan all on its own leaving a clean release after it has cooled.

Let me know how your cakes turned out and if you won't bake another cake without a flower nail again. ;-)

Baked Pumpkin Seeds

With Halloween coming up on Wednesday I thought I would venture off the cake path and give you a holiday recipe I love, baked pumpkin seeds!
 

Here is what you'll need:

1 pumpkin
Colander
Kitchen knife (one you don't mind cutting into a pumpkin with)
Bowl
Olive oil
Tin foil
Baking sheet
Salt or season all



 
What you do first is buy a pumpkin and gut it, pardon the expression.  If you are going to also make your pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern you can cut a little notch in it so the lid can be replaced easily.

 Then you'll want to separate the seeds from the goo and wash the seeds off. I put mine in a colander so I don't loose any in the process.

Once you're seeds are clean lay the seeds out on a towel in a single layer and let them dry. You can leave them out overnight or for a few hours during the day. You want the seed to be all the way dry through so they can get crispy when you bake them.

Once the seeds are dry transfer them to a bowl and swirl some olive oil over them. I make a couple rounds with the oil and add a little more later if I feel like they could use it.

Stir up the seeds to make sure they all get coated with oil. You don't have to use olive oil you could also use vegetable oil or melted butter.

 Then you want to stir in your seasonings. My family likes Season All instead of just plain table salt. I like to use a generous amount.

 Next you'll line your baking sheet with tinfoil and spread out the seeds on it. After they are spread out I then add more seasoning, but it is up to you how much you want. Bake your seeds at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes.

 Half way through the baking processes take the seeds out and scoot them around and try to flip them so they can get evenly baked.

 When they're close to being done you will be able to smell them so watch them so they don't burn. You could let them cook longer than 20 minutes but not too long.
Once they're done cooking they cool pretty quickly and then you can enjoy a delicious salty treat!

You can also put your pumpkin seeds in a jar and make them part of  your fall decor!

 

Leave a comment about your experiences with baked pumpkin seeds and if you have any tips on how to make them even better!